Serena's World

Sunday 20th (April)

In the morning Libby and Mira went up to the Cathedral, Caroline and I went down to Mr Pagington’s with Father, heard a splendid sermon and returned. Libby was quite sick in the afternoon, however Thomas came up which cheered her up. In the afternoon I did not go to class as I had no money to take with me. Thomas S[pooner] and Thomas H[unt] came and staid to tea. After tea we all went to church, heard a poor sermon and returned, retired quite early.

This is Easter Sunday. Jenny Lind attends church today, in black, and is recognized by no one (Ware and Lockard 90). The Cathedral is probably St. Peter’s Cathedral, Roman Catholic, on the southwest corner of Plum and 8^th Streets (Cist 77). Why do Libby and Mira, who are Methodist, visit the Cathedral? Is it possible that they think they might spot Jenny Lind there?

Mr. Pagington’s church is not mentioned in Cist’s Cincinnati in 1851.

Serena mentions that she does not attend her church class because she has no money. This is one of the two times that Serena mentions money. She asked Uncle Henry for two dollars on April 9. Could she be trying to get together enough cash to buy a ticket to hear Jenny Lind?

A member of Jenny’s troupe wanders about the city today. He observes: “It is apparently a city whose rapid growth has been too quick to allow cleanliness and neatness the chances of expansion. Some sixty years since a few log houses, and a wooden chapel, were all that marked the spot which was so soon after to be the abiding place of a large and wealthy city. Its situation is charming. Almost surrounded with small hills, and placed in the corner of a bend in the stream of the Ohio, it will, when it has partially finished its singularly rapid growth, and can find time for the development of its advantages on the side of comfort, be, I should imagine, one of the finest cities in this portion of the States (Rosenberg 206).”